Should SEO Video Companies Own Your Videos After You Leave Their Service?

Do most seo video companies put your videos up under their account and then when you stop using their service, they remove them?

I am looking into hiring a seo video company and want to know if this is common practice. I personally think that we should own those videos but it was explained to me that like a video rental, you are renting/leasing the space for those videos to be placed out their on their servers and that if you stop, it is now their property.I am able to get the company I am looking at to let us own 10 or so should we decide to stop.

The only other reason I can think of that justifies companies taking the online videos down is because it is like running a tv commercial. Once you stop paying to run it, it comes down.

Replies to This ADM Discussion

Michael, the services around creating and posting videos are not comparable to building and hosting websites because the intent around video publishing is to specifically use sites hosted by others, such as YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler and dozens of others. First and foremost, why would you even want to create and publish online videos if there were NOT going to be posted to accounts that are owned and branded with the dealership's name and information in that account's profile? It does not make sense for dealer A to create and publish videos, thereby boosting the relevancy and SEO characteristics for a YouTube account owned and branded with the name of a competing dealer... So why would you want to pay to do the very same thing for an account owned and branded with a supplier's name? Just does not make sense. What's the whole point of creating and posting videos? A big part of the value proposition is to brand and promote the YouTube Channel, and various other accounts owned by the dealership. This is very different than hiring a company to design and create your dealership website, where if you cancel their services, of course you expect the site to be removed. With video services, you are NOT PAYING FOR HOSTING!!!! The videos are hosted by third party networks, such as those I've mentioned... What you are paying for is the CREATION OF VIDEOS! Which means the dealership should own those videos... When you pay a contractor to build a new showroom. After the construction is completed, when you stop paying that construction contractor, the company does not come to the dealership and tear down the darned showroom!

I think what he means is our dealership's website is created by a website builder from Dealer.com. Thus, if we stopped their service, we would lose our website since it isn't created on our own host, Ralph. I just hope that we own our domain! I wouldn't know because this service was brought on before I started. This is one mistake I know many businesses make when hiring a web company to register their domain and create their website. The web company puts the domain registration in their name and not the company's name.

I believe Chrysler would make sure we own our domains with their partners. I just wasn't at my position when our dealership created it. But, Dealer.com uses a web builder with their hosting. So, if we stopped using Dealer.com, we would lose our website but not our domain. It is similar to using web builders with hosting for GoDaddy.com, Office365.com, etc.

Kim I was not even aware you site was hosted with Dealer.com I just know several that I work with are so that is why I used Dealer.com. I have also seen the domain name issue to and it makes it more of a pain to ever leave your current host because now you will lose all the SEO work.

Ralph you do not have to convince me I was just stating that I had seen it done both ways. It makes perfect sense for dealers to own the videos and I like Ralph urge you to host any videos you purchased or created in your own accounts.

Important step of SEO of videos is when uploading the video for the first time, they are very hard to rank if not SEO properly from the beginning. So if someone creates or purchases a video start the SEO process prior to uploading and making the video public.

With that said I really do not find it that much different than creating websites. Both involve design and creation of an asset in which the dealer has paid to have constructed. Just like videos, websites can be hosted on free hosting services, Google even has one. You spend much more money designing and creating a great website for branding than you do for creating a 30-60 second video so why would you not want to own that asset also and be able to place it on any hosting you desire. So this nice new showroom (website) that you have constructed when you stop paying to lease the land sitting on, the construction company will come and tear it down. Why do dealerships just not host these sites themselves and not have to keep paying to rebuild an asset they have already paid once or twice to have built?

Many people think the same way about videos as they do about websites as you pointed out in your post. "where if you cancel their services, of course you expect the site to be removed." I did not say it was a correct way of thinking nor did I ever say I agreed with the process. Just from my experience from working with people who are not familiar with videos and websites they make a lot of assumptions.

To anyone besides Kim who checks this post out... I know Kim's question seems pretty reasonable and simple at first glance, but after reading an article in Advertising Age this morning about how effective video is in various aspects of Digital Marketing, I would like to point out that her question, and the dilemma she faces is one of the most strategically important issues within any dealership's automotive digital marketing strategy... Who, What, When, Where and How you create, edit, post and publish your dealership's videos for marketing communications purposes is an essential and high impact part of your store's digital marketing strategy. The solutions range from the Douglas Motors (Ken Beam) approach of keeping most of the work in-house to the full scale service providers such as Car-Mercial, Automotive Media Group and others. I spoke to George Nenni of Dealer Specialties at AutoCon 2012 and he advised me that DS is currently piloting a new program where they send videographers to dealerships and record Vehicle Presentation Videos (VPV) for upload and distribution in a similar manner to what they do today for vehicle inventory photos. If this program is successful, it will leverage the reach and resources of the nation's largest supplier of vehicle inventory photos to create a whole new ecosystem of VPV's. I have also seen several locally based entrepreneurs develop businesses that take on a dozen or so local dealerships and provide video creation, editing and posting services... Regardless of which way you chose to go, I WILL PERSONALLY INSIST THAT THE DEALERS I WORK WITH HOST ANY AND ALL VIDEOS THEY HAVE CREATED OR PAID TO CREATE IN WEB BASD ACCOUNTS THAT ARE OWNED, BRANDED AND PROFILED WITH THE DEALERSHIP'S INFORMATION, INCLUDING LINKS AND SYNDICATION TO THE DEALERSHIP'S RELEVANT WEBSITES AND SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS.

@ Ralph - "of keeping most of the work in-house".........ummmmmmmmm.......Mr. Paglia this statement is a tad incorrect my friend.............ALL of the Video work created at the Douglas Auto Group is 100% totally created "in-house" - Just wanted to clarify that point.

Because I believe that branding somebody else's (including a supplier) owned and controlled YouTube Channel is such a major strategic blunder for dealers investing in video production, editing and distribution online, I am going to list a few YouTube links showcasing just a handful of dealers who have effective video marketing strategies in place that include their own dealership branded YouTube Channels:

Ralph nice find are these all dealer owned sites or do you know if they are paying someone to manage them? I think that is what Kim mentioned earlier videos would be uploaded on branded sites but then we the contract or payment stops they could remove the videos.

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